Fernando Baptista
= Solidarity Economy advocate in Brazil
Bio
"Fernando Cesar Pires Baptista
Interdisciplinary education including social sciences, administration and technology. Twelve years’ diversified experience with private enterprises, co-ops & solidarity economy enterprises, government, international organizations, non-profits and social movements. Well-versed in collective entrepreneurship and innovation related to wellbeing. Strong conviction that power distribution brings collective gains and justice, firm belief in co-operation and solidarity, and deep respect to cultural diversity.
Since the beginning of 2011, conducts cross-national research and consulting activities related to complementary/alternative (electronic) platforms of economic interaction and job creation; open-source social and production technology; social and solidarity economy, self-management and distributed organization. This period includes 9 months travelling in 13 countries of the Americas in order to research and experience ground-breaking initiatives on distributed and solidarity-based work organization and on real democracy.
Concluded in 2010 a master’s programme in International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, centred on understanding perceptions of marginalized urban youth entrepreneurs in East Africa about the perspective of engaging in grassroots collective entrepreneurship and its potential to engender common wellbeing. This extensive multi-method investigation – which included an intense fieldwork period in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam – was inspired by the Brazilian theories and practices of solidarity economy and oriented by the WeB’s wellbeing approach. The research results strongly testified that bringing together emancipatory theories and experiences from multiple social, cultural and geographic spheres (particularly amongst Latin-America, Africa and Europe) has in the current historical moment a remarkable potential of (re)creating sustainable, distributed, network-based, wellbeing-oriented alternative platforms of economic interaction and job creation, such as cooperative and solidary electronic-mediated networks of production or the use of alternative currencies to enhance social-provisioning in economically excluded groups and communities. These development initiatives seem to be highly aligned with and complementary to cash transfer programmes, and crucial as part of sound social protection or job-creating programmes in areas characterised by socioeconomic exclusion. More information on: http://baptistaf.wordpress.com
From 2004 to 2008, pursued an academic education in Social Sciences. This programme was partly conducted at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, and partly at the University of Montreal, Canada. During this time, became involved in research activities concerning small business’ social aspects and solidarity economy. One of these activities was the elaboration of a report on the small business sector in Santa Catarina State for the local UNDP office. Soon thereafter, had a brief but insightful work experience with UNHCR, assisting in a critical project for the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Brazil.
Previous education includes general management and industrial automation engineering. Previous experience comprises two and half years working in a technology-intensive multinational company (Embraco, http://www.embraco.com); followed by seven years of entrepreneurial practice in co-founding and growing an industrial automation company (Pollux, www.pollux.com.br) from a self-financed start-up into a prominent position in its field in Latin America and into the win of the Brazilian Innovation Agency’s 2001 National Award of Technological Innovation; and 9 months in a key position in the Department of Finance of Santa Catarina State Government, Brazil with focus on restructuring and modernizing the public sector."
More Information
- contact author via [email protected]
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/fernandobaptista
- writing and research results on http://baptistaf.wordpress.com/ and https://sites.google.com/site/fcpbaptista/